SJ, Guardians

SP, Realists

NF, Idealists

NT, Rationalists

Description

The MBTI, short for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, draws up 16 types that each of us can belong to, according to our preferred functions or lifestyle on 4 different scales:

Introversion / Extroversion

Intuition / Sensing

Thinking / Feeling

Judging / Perceiving

The MBTI sorts for type; it does not indicate the strength of ability. The questionnaire allows the clarity of a preference to be ascertained (Bill clearly prefers introversion), but not the strength of preference (Jane strongly prefers extraversion) or degree of aptitude (Harry is good at thinking).

Notable Posts

Other Personality Tests

Big5 is a model with five factors, used to describe human personality. It is widely accepted academically as the most fitting personality test. Researches have shown that Big5 as emic measure does not work so well in Asian countries, but as etic measure has been reciprocated in other languages/cultures such as German, Chinese, Indian, and so on.

The Enneagram categorizes human personality into nine types. It's the work of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, and has a subreddit which can be found here: /r/enneagram.

I love a story that doesn't give you an intro. To me, I feel like stories are written with too much hand holding in the intro. I like figuring stuff out, being thrust into the middle of a world and forced to learn how to walk.

The other thing I have noticed is that I don't mind stories being "spoiled". N no matter how it goes, it's always different than what I imagined.

Overall, I don't mind the ending (unless it's too pretty), I like open beginning though.

Strangely enough, I almost always forget the last 10-15 minutes of every movie I watch. Now that you mention it, it's probably because when I like a movie I like it for the substance in the beginning and middle. If a story is written such that I can imagine many satisfying endings, I think I like it more and thus don't care about the actual ending. But I'm and INTJ, so that may be one of those other traits at play.

The other thing I have noticed is that I don't mind stories being "spoiled".

Ooh, I've noticed the same thing lately. I might pick up a TV series late, and learn that X character dies at some point... but it's okay, because I still don't know why or how they die. It's like watching a Quentin Tarantino film.

For example, I found out about a big plot development in Breaking Bad, long before I started watching the show. So I spent 4 seasons learning about the characters, and seeing the situation develop. Even though I KNEW what was going to happen, the tension was unbearable, and the payoff was amazing when I finally saw all the threads of the story come together.

I personally prefer closed-ended because having something clearly be open-ended bugs me because it seems lazy, and I can't really enjoy the freedom to create my own ending because the laziness is irritating me.

However, I'll usually then add myself as a character and create an alternate storyline in my mind if I take a particular liking to the whatever-it-is.

I prefer closed-ended ones because I desperately crave the closure. I don't care if it's all morally ambiguous and such, I just to know for a fact exactly what happened at the end so I don't stay awake at night driven mad by my unsatisfied curiosity.

Closed endings are good for entertainment. you experience them and then after a while you forget them. To me the really great stories have an open ending and leave things open for interpretation. My favorite movie of all time has been Donnie Darko. After watching that movie most people said "WTF?" you have decide for yourself if this was a story about a messed up kid of his meds or a superhero granted this chance to save our universe. there are many other interpretations but these are the two most common. It takes a while to sink in and fully digest what it means to you and how you rationalize its meaning. when people walked out of that movie it was an uproar of conversations about what it meant to them or even i did't get this, what do you think it meant. To me an open ending allows the story to become personal. because one you write your ending you can find new meaning in the story in a second and third watching. gain more information to your interpretation and when all is said and done the story you just experienced is yours and yours alone.

I like when there is a whole world and the story is relatively small and insignificant to the entire world in which it takes place. I think LOTR is a great example because although the story of the ring is hugely important to Middle Earth, it's relatively insignificant to the rest of Arda. Not to mention all the shit that happened in the thousands of years before LOTR or will happen after. Even The Silmarillion which tells the stories and myths of Arda are at a high enough level where much of the world can be created in the reader's mind.

I can definitely agree with this. Back in the day I loved the story of Warcraft II, which took place on a small part of earth (with orcs invading through a portal from another world.) When they made Warcraft III, they had you discover the whole world, they explained where the orcs came from, had a bunch of Gods controlling everything and explained everything. Totally ruined it..... (I never played WoW, so I wouldn't know if the story got any better.)

I think I enjoy open-ended more. As a kid I always was enamored by the Narnia books, as it always seemed like there was so much to the world and you were only allowed a glimpse of it; you had to fill in the rest. (And in a similar vein, the Martian Chronicles rocked my world.)

I also am most attached to Final Fantasy 4 and 6, and Breath of Fire 2, possibly because it used my imagination filling in the graphics instead of just showing me what they wanted me to see.

I enjoy the definitive "this is the end," though, because I don't need an open end to create my own ending. I appreciate the buildup as much as, if not more than, the ending and can go from there.

I think the main problem with open-ended stories is that most authors/creators/whatever don't pull it off well. I often find their productions feeling lazy and half-assed. Nothing bothers me more than an ambiguous ending to a cancelled tv show, or an open-ended story that has great potential for more, but never gets added to.

video games - certainly open-ended. my favourite games are all pretty much all simulation games (football manager, sim city etc.) and the few storyline games that i like are also pretty open-world (gta, final fantasy).

novels & films - for novels, the ending doesn't really matter. it's all about how much depth i can get out of the text in terms of character development, imagery, context and so forth. i reckon this is because i reread texts quite willingly but not films. i like films to ask questions rather than providing answers as i think about them for a while after i watch them, but rarely rewatch the whole movie.

I like sentences and paragraphs that flow effortlessly. I want prose that is playful and inventive. I want to see wordplay that supports the story and keeps the tone fresh. Overuse of the same phrases or literary devices makes me throw books across the room.

I like stories where the plot doesn't have devices, it has incidents. I want shit to happen because it has a reason to happen, not because the characters have moral reasons to do so.

I want COMPETENT CHARACTERS facing tough situations. Nothing pisses me off like watching someone flounder about helplessly and yet somehow he makes it to the end because he's the main character and therefore important. I feel supreme satisfaction from reading GRRM's books and seeing important characters die regardless of moral leanings. It may be upsetting to some people, but to me it actually makes the story fresh and interesting.

I want everything to have overarching themes, though. I hate plots that just wiggle around for no damn reason, without a point. The more story arcs that intertwine, the better. The more it resembles a huge, well-engineered machine, the better.

No mysteries that can't be guessed. I hate open-ended shit that's done that way for the sake of being open-ended. "What does it mean? Well, I guess you have to put your own meaning into it!" No, fuck that. That's lazy writing.

I want a story that presents us with some sort of philosophical insight. I want it to teach me things. Tantalizing mysteries are boring. I want a gourmet meal of ideas. Even if it's fiction. Especially if it's fiction.